Labor elder statesman Martin Ferguson says the ALP should support the return of the Coalition's construction watchdog, industrial relations reforms and warned Australia's high labour costs and low productivity risk billions in revenue.

In comments that will embarrass Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and ramp up political pressure on Labor to pass workplace law changes through the Senate, the former Rudd and Gillard government minister and ACTU president belled the cat on the Coalition's government's ''modest'' reforms to Fair Work laws.

"Elements of the Fair Work Act must be looked at": Martin Ferguson. Photo: Michele Mossop

Mr Ferguson's intervention comes as the Coalition introduced a raft of changes to the Fair Work laws to the Parliament on Thursday that tighten right-of-entry rules for unions, allow employees to trade penalty rates for more flexible hours and close so-called ''strike first, talk later'' loopholes.

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In a speech in Perth on Friday, the now chairman of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association said complacency threatened 23 years of uninterrupted growth and that he was pleased ''sensible'' industrial relations reform was on the agenda.

While the future of gas investment had been ''all blue sky'' three years ago, he said billions in export revenue and taxation were at risk because of over-regulation.

''High labour costs and low productivity are an unsustainable mix,'' Mr Ferguson said. ''And therefore elements of the Fair Work Act must be looked at.''

Mr Ferguson said the Coalition's plan to restore the Australian Building and Construction Commission should be seen as a step that would encourage investment in Australia.

''Rather than seeing the ABCC as a tool that allows one side to get an upper hand over the other in some never-ending ideological skirmish, it should be seen for what it was: a mechanism that holds both sides to account and which can help deliver projects on time and on budget,'' he said.

''As the son of a bricklayer, I know a thing or two about the building industry.

''But it is time that some in today's union leadership recognised that their members' long-term interests are aligned with their long-term job security.''

Labor and the union movement are implacably opposed to the ABCC, which was introduced by the former Howard government after the Cole royal commission on the building industry and then abolished by the Gillard government.

The Abbott government argues the restoration of the ABCC is necessary to crack down on lawlessness and corruption in the building industry. In recent months, Fairfax Media has carried a series of reports linking the construction union and building industry figures with organised crime, extortion and corruption, helping to trigger a royal commission.

Mr Ferguson singled out the militant Maritime Union for a short-sighted approach to bargaining over pay and conditions as it sought to ratchet up wages and conditions for new ''greenfields'' projects and called for longer-term agreements to ensure major projects were delivered.

In Parliament, Leader of the House Christopher Pyne said the government's bill would assist businesses that faced excessive workplace visits from unions when employees were not union members, ensure good faith bargaining took place and ensure greater flexibility.

270 comments

It’s pretty obvious stuff though – the Gillard years simply laid down and presented the unions pretty much all they wanted. And what results is a raft of business failures, with massive job losses. It’s time to bring back a more level playing field. High costs, low productivity, of course businesses will struggle.

Shorten’s looking increasingly isolated on the wrong side of the debate, yet again.

Commenter

Hacka

Location

Canberra

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 4:30AM

Good to see you volunteering to be the first to take a pay cut while the cost of living remains high, and the housing market is over inflated. Paid less, but prices still remain high, wouldn't that create a class of people working but poor, unable to provide for themselves and their families?

Commenter

wdawes

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 4:48AM

Gillard's and Rudd's legacy, job loses, inner generational debt, unfounded welfare program's, Internet technology failure, declining business confidence, open borders with traggic consequences, the list goes on. Now Shorten's legacy, umm I'm stuck for ideas.....the rise of the party faceless men. That's about it together with parliamentary performances that have further eroded public confidence in politicians.

Commenter

enough is enough

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 4:56AM

hi hacka - look where he now gets his bread and butter.

Follow the money trail

He is speaking for his masters - he who pays the piper calls the tune.

That is not to say that his opinion should be ignored, but if you didn't respect Ferguson when he was ACTU president, why would you suddenly say that his opinion is respectable now?

Commenter

Ross

Location

Mallabula

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 5:02AM

Yes

The Pieman of the Proletariat is on a hiding to nothing.

His body language in Parliament is more Oompa-Loompa, than Opposition.

His quiver-lipped acquiescence to the excesses of the execrable Conroy is just one of a handful of final nails in a coffin of incompetence.

Commenter

HotPies

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 5:03AM

The only way to compete with the third world is to become third world. Reducing wages won't make us more successful at high volume manufacturing, it will just make most of us poorer. The economy does need to restructure and sadly jobs will be lost. Australia needs to focus on high value adding industries, we will never 'mass produce' while people live in large scale poverty overseas.

The whole reduce wages increase productivity thing is a wealth relocation exercise disguised as a cure and it will not serve us well in the long run.

Commenter

Bruce

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 5:08AM

Yes, those effects were unique result in the Australian economy over the past 5 years. And uniquely caused purely by industrial policy at a federal level.Everywhere else in the world? Boom times everywhere!

Commenter

frank

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 5:09AM

Hacka,, Couldn''t agree more you can see what the unions have done with Qantas, they brought them to a standstill last year, and now a lot of them union members will loose their jobs, to the unions involved blame everyone else, sack the leader, like your Labor Party did, but don't try and assist in any way. I think it's called Karma.

karma

Commenter

Say It Again

Location

Vermont South

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 5:10AM

I see Peta is first to comment again and as usual adds nothing to the debate other than partisan politics. Luckily for Australia, Labor doesn't see its role as simply to oppose.It sees itself as a party that can influence good policy.

Commenter

Steve

Date and time

February 28, 2014, 5:10AM

Hacka. Give me a breakdown of the wages of management and CEO of a business and their actual workers. Give me the change in workers wages over the last 7 years and CEO and Management Wages and bonuses over the last 7 years. Why is it that when business makes a profit it is thanks to the genius of management and the CEO and they are paid massive bonuses and salary increases while the workers are told we are in Challenging times ( year after year). Why is it that as soon as a business makes a loss it is the Unions, The Workers, The Wages, The Inflexibility of IR. Honestly the lies, deception and outright Theft of Management and the abuse of their employees is a disgrace. People who support the removal of employees benefits and salaries, without doing exactly the same to their Management and CEO are hypocrites and cheats. Shorten is only on the wrong side of those who are Greedy, Blind and Self Serving. Ferguson is now beholden to those who pay his wages, and like so many his greed has overcome his morals.